Basic Documents on the Black Struggle - CLR James

Rare collection of readings by C.L.R. James recommended to members of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit in the early 1970s.

Download the pamphlet here: CLR James - Basic Documents on the Black Struggle.pdf (libcom.org)

Below are recommended readings from C.L.R. James for members of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit in the early 1970s. A new introduction to James's Facing Reality by Kimathi Mohammed, and Negro Revolution Through Revolutionary Socialism have been transcribed for the first time here.

"[In 1970] Being apprised of developments with respect to the internal problems the League of Revolutionary Black Workers was faced with, James, characteristically, mapped out a simple strategy during his meeting with key members of the Garvey Institute for exposing and reintroducing various political tendencies within the League to this historical, literary, philosophical and theoretical works.

What James specifically proposed is that the Garvey Institute reprint Facing Reality with a new introduction aimed primarily at stimulating the Black Nationalist tendencies inside the League, that were hostile to anything branded Marxism, to read and study his works for the purpose of broadening their perspective, and thinking on the tasks that faced the Black Revolution in the United States.

He also proposed that the Garvey Institute enter into collaboration with Friends of Facing Reality to jointly reprint Basic Documents on the Black Struggle and Notes on Dialectics.

James deemed these two documents key for (1) countering radical forces inside and outside the League that attacked Black Nationalism on the grounds that from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism it was reactionary and (2) steering the League forces towards a proper understanding of what dialectics as a method of thought was all about and how to correctly apply it as a tool of analysis."

--Kimathi Mohammed, Beyond Measure: C.L.R. James’s Influence on the League of Revolutionary Black Workers